TomB,
I got the same response as you did, came late last night. It would be nice if there is enough pressure from those who patronize their restuarants to make them rethink their placement on the menu...

The Steelhead being offered for sale in McCormicks specifically states that it is from Moses Lake???? I doubt the Hoh tribe is shipping their steelhead to a distributor in Moses Lake, but then again they're getting them from ~somewhere~. Don't know of any steelhead rivers running thru Moses Lake?? Also, they make no claims of "wild" on their menu.

Bob - I don't understand your argument. If the fish are caught in the Native's nets, they're dead. If they're not, then they proceed upstream. If a fisherman chooses to fish the lower river, he's fishing for the few traveling steelhead that are making it thru the nets.

Is that any worse than fishing for spawners/pooled up fish in the upper river?? They're all Hoh River fish, whether you fish for them at the mouth or up high. And each one has probably had to survive running past a few gill nets.

If you are arguing for lessening the sportfishing impact on a run of Steelhead that is obviously suffering increased harvest from the gill nets in this low water year, then ask that people don't fish the Hoh river.

Or if you're suggesting that the esthetic experience is compramised by the sights of wiggling gillnet floats (=fish dying below the surface) and tribal members beating the sides of their jetboats to drive steelhead into their nets, then you have my complete agreement.

But suggesting that fishing the lower river is somehow more harmful to the steelhead because that's where the gillnets are doesn't make any sense. If the fish are too stressed from avoiding the gillnets, won't they just avoid taking your fly??

We now need to follow up our first round of emails with a thank you to those same restuarants, we want them to know that we appreciate their cooperation and hope that they'll completely abandon wild steelhead on their menus from here on out.

I'm down for the dinner night as long as we can be certain that this is going to be a lasting policy until the fish recover (how do we know whether they are doing it just because it has been on the menu for a while and they want something new?)
-Thomas

A follow-up call with Attila Szabo has confirmed that this is just a menu change based on availability. Wild Hoh River Steelhead will likely be on RU's menus next year unless further persuasion is effective between now and then.

On the brighter side - there are plans in the works for representatives from several Wild Steelhead advocacy groups to have a meeting with reps from RU to discuss this issue and offer further evidence documenting the declining runs on Hoh and the devastating impact supporting the Native's commercial harvest is having.